Sometime between college and graduate school I read Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene. Ironically, Dawkins, to some degree wrote the book to undermine religious concepts of explaining human behavior. There’s nothing spiritual going on and the currency of life isn’t species or societies or even individuals, but the microscopic gene. But rather than cast doubt on the foundation of faith, in my mind anyway, it strengthened those foundations. Christianity, for example, has two central commands from Jesus: Love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself. Buddhism agrees with Dawkins, our concepts of our self is illusory, we’re components which when assembled don’t have an essence.

Love in its truest sense unravels the selfishness that is part of our nature. Consider altruism. It is hard to escape the truth that almost all actions of “selflessness,” are done in the interests of some greater good that benefits the notion of self. Achieving something greater, true love might be less important than seeking it. At some point I confused Orpheus and Eurydice with Dante and Beatrice, having a sense that Dante was following Beatrice to heaven. Perhaps, in a sense, this is true; Dante’s love for Beatrice was his conversion.

<–Day Nine: What is Love Anyway?
Day Eleven: The Measure of Faith is Action—>